In recent years, a vehicle that has a power storage device (e.g., a secondary battery, a capacitor and the like) mounted thereon and runs using driving force generated from electric power stored in the power storage device has received attention as an environmentally-friendly vehicle. This vehicle includes, for example, an electric vehicle, a hybrid vehicle, a fuel cell vehicle and the like. There has been proposed a technique of charging the power storage device mounted on this vehicle by a commercial power supply having high power generation efficiency.
Similarly to the electric vehicle, as for the hybrid vehicle, there has been known a vehicle in which charging (hereinafter, also simply referred to as “external charging”) of a vehicle-mounted power storage device by a power supply external to the vehicle (hereinafter, also simply referred to as “external power supply”) is possible. For example, there has been known a so-called “plug-in hybrid vehicle” in which the power storage device can be charged from a power supply in an ordinary household by connecting an outlet provided at a house and a charging port provided at the vehicle through a charging cable. It can be expected that this leads to enhancement of the fuel consumption efficiency of the hybrid vehicle.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2009-033265 (PTL 1) discloses such a configuration that, in a vehicle capable of external charging, information is transmitted between the vehicle and an external power supply as well as between the vehicle and another vehicle via a charging port by Power Line Communication (PLC).